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Flavoring-Factory Illnesses Raise Inquiries

SAN FRANCISCO, May 5 — The workers, by and large, have been young and healthy. None were smokers, and none had any history of lung disease. But after working at plants that produce food flavorings, they all had one thing in common: they could not breathe.

Over the last several years, California health officials have been tracking a handful of workers in flavoring factories who have been incapacitated with a rare, life-threatening lung condition — bronchiolitis obliterans — for which there is no cure or treatment. Usually found only in people who are poisoned by chemical fires or chemical warfare or in lung transplant patients, bronchiolitis obliterans renders its victims unable to exert even a little energy without becoming winded or faint.

“The airways to the lung have been eaten up,” said Barbara Materna, the chief of the occupational health branch in the California Department of Health Services. “They can’t work anymore, and they can’t walk a short distance without severe shortness of breath.”

Seven flavoring-factory workers in California are known to have the disease or similarly serious lung damage, and 22 others have had lung tests come back with abnormal results. In each case, scientists and health officials say, the common dominator is exposure to the vapors from a pungent yellow-colored flavoring called diacetyl, best known for giving microwave popcorn its buttery goodness.

Officials from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration testified at a Congressional hearing last month on concerns about the additive. Several other federal agencies, including the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, are also investigating the effects of diacetyl, the subject of scores of civil lawsuits filed on behalf of victims of so-called popcorn lung.

But in California, which has 28 flavoring plants known to use diacetyl, some legislators and government officials seem unwilling to wait. A bill to ban diacetyl in the workplace by 2010 has passed two committees in the State Assembly and could be taken up by the full body this summer. It is the first proposal of its kind in the nation.

Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, the author of the bill, said she introduced it because of what she said was the slow response by the flavoring industry, which is largely self-regulating on occupational safety.

“What we’ve heard is that the flavoring industry has known for years that this is potentially a problem, and they haven’t taken action,” said Ms. Lieber, a Democrat.

Officials in the flavoring industry, which had about $3.5 billion in sales in 2006, say they are well aware of the concerns surrounding diacetyl, but they strongly dispute that they have been lax.

John B. Hallagan, the general counsel for the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association, a trade group, said his members had provided information on worker health to state and federal authorities since 2001, shortly after the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health issued a report linking lung problems in 16 workers at a popcorn packaging plant in Missouri to diacetyl. Mr. Hallagan added that his group was working closely with the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health to “help flavor manufacturers have the safest workplaces possible.”

Len Welsh, the acting chief of the occupational safety agency, a division of the state Department of Industrial Relations, said the trade group had been cooperative. “They have done nothing but facilitate our involvement,” Mr. Welsh said.

Mr. Welsh’s office is considering a petition by the California Labor Federation and the United Food and Commercial Workers union asking for immediate standards to be set to protect workers. An advisory committee is mulling recommendations to the occupational safety and health standards board at the state Department of Industrial Relations. The board, which sets the state’s workplace standards, said in a report released in September that there was “little question that serious respiratory illness in the form of bronchiolitis obliterans had occurred in association with occupational exposure to flavoring substances.”

The first case of bronchiolitis obliterans in flavoring-factory workers was reported in California in August 2004. The unidentified worker, who is now in his early 30s, had worked at a plant in Southern California since 2001 as a flavor compounder, handling and mixing diacetyl with other ingredients in cauldron-like blenders. Early symptoms included wheezing, chest pain and cough. Soon, the man was unable to walk more than 15 feet without breathing heavily.

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In April 2006, state authorities found another worker with similar symptoms, and officials have since confirmed five other cases of “severe fixed obstructive lung disease.” All of the victims worked in factories in California. At the time they sought medical attention, they ranged in age from 27 to 44. One of them is now on a list for a lung transplant, Ms. Materna, the California health official, said.

“When you’re talking about handling the pure material, it’s a very concentrated and very strong chemical,” she said. “And it was typically handled without precaution. There was no particular recognition that this chemical had this very severe health effect.”

Mr. Welsh, the California Occupational Safety and Health Authority official, said two California companies had been fined for failing to protect workers, and 26 others had agreed to conduct health screenings and make workplace changes that included covering vats, providing respirators and masks, and installing better ventilation.

Still, he said, his office is having trouble keeping up. “I wish we’d gotten out act together faster,” he said.

While diacetyl has long been used in so-called flavor houses like the factory in Southern California, concerns about its safety date to the mid-1970s, said Dr. David Egilman, a clinical associate professor of community health at Brown University. Dr. Egilman has worked as a litigation consultant for popcorn workers and wrote a recent paper about diacetyl published in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health.

“There’s lots of cases where this chemical is the only consistent factor,” he said. “And there’s a lot more disease out there than people know.”

Mr. Hallagan, the trade group lawyer, said manufacturers used higher concentrations of diacetyl in response to consumer preferences. Still, he said, manufacturers were looking to lower the concentration, without robbing the consumer of flavor.

“There is no single substance that can replace diacetyl because it is the single substance most responsible for the ‘buttery note,’ ” Mr. Hallagan wrote in a response to questions about the chemical.

Mr. Hallagan said that data on any link between diacetyl and lung disease was inconclusive, but that his industry was not waiting for definitive proof. He said many flavor manufacturers had already embraced better ventilation, employee health testing, and new safety and educational programs.

Ms. Lieber, the California legislator, said a better solution might be to take the chemical out of the workplace altogether.

“It’s not like we’re talking about a potential flaw in the polio vaccine,” she said. “We are talking about a potentially devastating disease caused by buttering flavor. And there are alternatives out there. Including butter.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A33 of the New York edition with the headline: Flavoring-Factory Illnesses Raise Inquiries. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe